Penboch to Port Navalo

This second day of our trip to the Golfe du Morbihan was going to be hot, a coefficient of 80 just a little smaller than a mean spring tide meant we’d get plenty of assistance from the current.
Also being a Saturday, we were expecting plenty of people on the water. Our plan was loose … just take a run out with the falling tide and return with the flood.
Our first stop was on Île d’Arz to have a look at another Tidal mill. The wall seen in the Photo dams a natural lake about 1.5 Square kilometers, sluice gates can be opened to regulate the flow through the mill.

We continued our journey crossing over to Île Aux Moines,  as we approached the narrows between Île Brannec and Île Aux Moines the race was just starting and raising small waves.

The current took us speedily onwards around the Southern point of Île Aux Moines and on towards Pointe de Kerners.

We wanted to stop on Île Gavinis for a bit of lunch and to check out the burial mound. we continued up across the tide and rounded the top of Île Jument and into the race South of Île Berder and on to Gavrinis. The race here was  working well adding a bit of fun into the trip. Visits to the Burial mound are by appointment only

After lunch we crossed back over the race across to the small Island Er Lannec.    This is a bird sanctuary and landing at this time of year is forbidden. There are Two stone circles here where half the circles are submerged at high tide. It indicates just how quickly the water levels have risen in the Golfe du Morbihan

The map above shows what the Golfe du Morbihan looked like in Neolithic times, the dark blue representing the Sea and existing rivers. The light blue shows landmass now lost to the rising water levels and the Green shows current land geography
I have indicated the most significant tide races with a red dot, they all occur at locations where the original watercourse ran.

The next part of our journey took us across another race that was fast and bouncy before we arrived at Port Navalo  a little before Low water. We popped into the bakers for bread ..and came out with  a Kouign Amann   (pronounced ‘Quin aman’  )  a traditional Breton cake made up of Bread dough covered in butter and sugar coiled up and baked
We rode the flood back to Penboch taking a more direct route along the North coast. Progress was fast and as we expected there were lots of water users out.  On one occasion we came across some Power boats that were clearly speeding … and quite frightening, but otherwise everyone had a friendly smile for us and  a great atmosphere was felt whilst on the water.